If It's Any Consolation, Abe Or Whatever His Name Is In Those Books Canonically Gets Killed By Another

If it's any consolation, Abe or whatever his name is in those books canonically gets killed by another Bhaalspawn in a 5e adventure.

abe dbsvsgsvsga

yeah, i know, but he is also considered the canonical CHARNAME and his death is the thing that pretty much kicks off the events of bg3, so i'm terrified he'll be this constant presence in the narrative. especially since we're getting minsc as a companion (though maybe that isn't a big deal bc minsc turned down adventuring with abdel in favor of waiting tables in athkatla lmao)

You know what? It’s fine. You will tell me when you’re ready.

An actual sweetheart❤

Ornate Mirror

“If you could see anything in me, what would it be?”

I finally decided to take the time to see all of the companion’s options to this question out of pure curiosity. It just makes me want to know more and more about them. Spoiler pics below for those who wish to see them for themselves.

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bitching about narrative design in bioware games part 1

feel free to keep scrolling if you dont want to see me bitching about baldurs gate and dragon age (and even a tiny bit of mass effect). i was talking to one of my best friends (https://sunwinni.tumblr.com/) about bioware’s narrative design and how they enjoy shitting the bed. im gonna be really messy and probably hit a lot of different points in an unorganized fashion, so i apologize if this is confusing, its not meant to be a professional analysis.

while i deeply love the baldurs gate series, forgotten realms, and dragon age, i think faerun sucks in general and im sure that surprises no one here.

you cannot convince me that a world where most bipoc features and cultures are represented as “savage” and/or “evil” is designed well. so many things about faerun are so stereotypical and so poorly designed it’s difficult to want to create new stories in it for me. characters that in lore design SHOULD be bipoc are often not represented that way in the actual stories and games. biggest example is minsc, who is painted white in both of his portraits in bg1 and 2, and will likely be white in bg3 when (i dont think its an “if”) he shows up. a smaller example is khalid, jaheira’s husband, who (imo) should have been painted to look middle eastern/south asian considering his name and backstory.

minsc is easily one of the most beloved baldurs gate characters, if not one of the most beloved rpg characters in gaming. i dearly love him too. yet theres a lot about the framing of his character and story that just bothers me so much, especially irt how his mental disability/traumatic brain injury is played off to comedic effect and never actually comes into play in a way that discusses or looks at the issue effectively.

his witch dynaheir is the only black woman companion in the entirety of the original two bladurs gate games, and she’s killed off (along with khalid) at the beginning of baldurs gate 2 to supply minsc with some sads. not only was she easily THE most powerful female mage in the game, her enemy edwin is now effectively the most powerful mage in the game. he literally wanted to murder her in bg1.

you know who they replaced dynaheir with in bg2? a white girl lol

yeah, of course, if you dont recruit aerie and dont have minsc, you never get this storyline. but its in there. he asks aerie to be his new witch. aerie, btw, is a multiclassed cleric/mage, and thus will never be as effective a mage as dynaheir could have been strategically or mechanically. but thats not the worst part imo. the worst part is we all lost out on dynaheir for the entirety of bg2 and ToB and never got to see what her story could have been.

tldr: they killed the only black woman in the og bg games for a (supposedly) white man’s pain and then offered a replacement in the form of a white woman.

im not done yet tho, bcoz i bring this all up to talk about how bioware frames and designs their more modern games like mass effect, but especially dragon age, which is supposed to be “dark fantasy” ala game of thrones. ill post part 2 soon. edit: here is part 2

Dev notes found in the “Weave scene” file. Spoiler-free, if you already know the scene.

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